just all right good afternoon good evening to everyone first of all thank you so much for being here i appreciate your presence i appreciate your time so i'm tyron clackner i'm the city council representative for district nine and it is always an honor and a pleasure to serve so we're going to get started with the district hall district nine town hall and it does not matter what community you live in but my target communities where you know hills i've got some water uh those particular communities so we're going to take care of some housekeeping things first of all so restrooms you pass by them on your way to this room once you go out directly to your right and then there's candy so when i started teaching about 33 years ago candy was a no-no in the classroom but now research has shown that candy is a regulator the sugar is a regulator and it'll help keep you oh wait not that my presentation will be boring hopefully you'll be like you'll learn a lot this evening but if you find yourself kind of drifting there's a bucket full of candy back there take as much and eat as much as you like and then cell phones please put your cell phones on vibrate or silent if you need to take the call please go out into the hallway i'm going to present the information i don't mind because the teacher in me doesn't mind calling on a raised hand but i would prefer if you get to the presentation and then ask questions also if you have a question and you want to make a comment which you need to fill out one of the orange comment cards that's on the table make sure you sign in so that we can stay in touch with you and i will have a mic and we'll probably bring the mic to you if you have questions so once again i'm tyrone quite more and the city council representative for district nine i also have with me tammy folks evans if you stand up cammy she is the dtu president and that stands for new ball teachers united and she's going to speak with us about the referendum for teachers now i don't have this is a presentation that i've used previously so i typically have a representative from jfrd i don't think i have one today and i usually have a representative from the from fop which is the eternal order of police i don't think i have one today as well and if one representative comes in then i would acknowledge that person if you have questions we'll direct those questions to that person however i do have some great city departments represented here tonight and so i have code enforcement but raise your hand this is mr christopher billings so that if you have any questions in regards to code enforcement you can go over to the table and talk with them also we have mr daryl joseph he is the director of parks he's here raising his hand there and we have dave mcdaniels who is with public works and mowing so if you have any questions for them you feel free to go to the tables and talk with them and then lee durbin he has not come yet but he's going to be here for traffic engineering right so we have this is our agenda i've done the welcome housekeeping of introduce our guests now we're going to get to the meeting purpose so first of all just like i stated earlier i'm going to refer to the handouts that are on the table if you don't have them make sure you pick them up so you should have a handout for amendment three is the official valid language and not necessarily in this order there's no particular order you should have a paragraph example of the trim notice you are a homeowner you know exactly what your trip notice is and this is an example of one you should have a two-pager handout that discusses the referendum for the village you should have a sample ballot of what you will see for district nine front and back and you should also see the referendum there's some notes about it and on the back the actual ballot language if you don't have any of those please pick it up from the table all right let's jump into things okay so i'm going to talk about the homestay exemption first which is the amendment called amendment three it's a proposition so you probably heard on tv and probably see some mailers that are asking telling you to vote yes and to vote no well let's talk about the facts let's talk about the facts once again if you don't have the handouts i'm going to refer to them so go to the table and pick up the handouts okay so let's let's talk about some things i'm going to ask you a couple of questions light bulbs you see them all around the city how much do you think a light bulb costs ten thousand okay that's a little bit too much but believe it or not you're in the ballpark five thousand okay good you say seven okay so at a minimum a light bulb costs two thousand dollars and it can go up to as much as nine thousand dollars all right so that's a light bulb in dubau county how many like those do you think we have that's a good question what do you think say yeah thousands not that's not quite thousands all right so we have 125 000 light bulbs how much electricity do you think we use in regards to those light bulbs each month what do you think you pay as a city okay no guesses oh this is this gonna be a tough group today okay so the city pays one million dollars per month to operate those 125 000 light bulbs a million dollars day yes and so what if we didn't have those light bulbs how does that make a difference exactly crime safety and even just helping you with seeing on the roadways so think about that let's think about something else roadways how much do you think it cost to pay or resurface one mile of a road did somebody say 30 dollars it's 1500 go higher you are very close but slightly over i asked how much do you think it takes cost to pay a mile for the road very close it actually costs 400 000 per month or if you're going to be exactly so keep that in mind as we talk about the referendum referendum three sorry the amendment three and how it's going to decrease our general fund and the revenue all right so let's get into the language so once again and just a brief note the late this is the official ballot language remember that there was a gentleman who's a former legislator he sued the state in order to have the inflammatory language removed so this is the actual language that you see on the ballot once again you have that that's one of your hands so we have this is what amendment three is proposing in 2027 to increase the homestead exemption from the typical 25 000 and i say typical because depending upon your individual situation your homestead exemption may be more but everyone gets that 25 000 so they're proposing that in 2027 the base homestead exemption will go from 25 000 to 150 000 and then in 28 to increase to 250 000 then with the additional language that's in the ballot discuss how the state will create a formula to calculate after 2028 so let's look at this particular example so this is homeowner a homeowner a just value and we know that just value actually is what someone will pay you to purchase your home but for the property assessor we know property appraiser we know that this could be the just value just value there's like a three percent there's the cabin there there's a save our homes aspect as well i won't really talk about that tonight if you want me to i will but i really won't talk because it's very detailed so this is 2026 and we have last year up there but this is the current year so the just value of the home is 183 593 the assessed value is going to be 182 038 the exemption is 25 000 just like i said that base the taxable value this is where we get those taxes and the state the city will get the revenue from that taxable value same home in 2027 just value 187 499 the assessed value 185 944 look at the exception this is what they're proposing and this will be the taxable value 35 944. any questions about that this far all right let's go on to the next slide so now this is what it would look like this is a comparison of both the 2026 trim notice and the 2027 trim notice so here this is the general it's the general government once again that assessed value i talked about this this is last year so last year based on the slide that i showed you earlier the tax would be 17 000 sorry this is 2027 so the assessed value is 85 the exemptions are 150 000 the taxable value is 35 944 this is the proposed taxes 402.28 on a home where the assessed value is 185 000 so this is the number where we would get and we being the city would get for our dual revenue 102 so we just talked about how much it costs to pay the road so if we have for example 20 homes in one subdivision and you know they always do comparables so the home next door to you doesn't home next door to this particular homeowner doesn't cost a great deal more than the one next to it so just imagine if we had 20 homes and those 20 homes their taxable value was 35 000 and then the taxes that they're going to pay 402.28 how many homes would we need in order to pay the road just a mom are you thinking about it yeah would we be able to pay roads we wouldn't and i know that as an as a homeowner myself i think about the individual benefit would i like to pay 402 in taxes as opposed to the 1757 absolutely but when i think of it on the broader scale as to what i what my city may lose i say to myself this is one that i take for the group this is the one where i sacrifice because the collecting is more important than the individual so at this point any questions any questions all right is this making you think i love your result all right yes ma'am all right let's go on so now i know you hear a lot of talk in regards to well let me talk about some other stuff so in 20 20 27 the city is proposed to lose about 84 million dollars if if amendment 3 passes which it won't 184 million and then the next year in 2028 200 or so 100 million that's a lot in taxes that's a lot in revenue where do you think you're going to make that up from what do you think could possibly happen oh you know what i wish i had a gold star for you because you are my best pupil right now yeah and i don't have any of that but that is my thought that's where they're trying to go yes ma'am in the back show me what you're looking at yes okay yes yes that's true so this particular home is off of biscayne um in the biscayne estates area so yes it does depend because it depends upon where you live you're exactly right and i'm going to i'm going to talk about that when we get to the one bill okay so in general it's like a thousand dollars less yes about 1300 yes ma'am good observation any other questions about the trim notice all right so let's go on so then in 2028 i talked about the difference and once again in 2028 if amendment three passes which it won't the homestead exemption increases to 250 000 so let's just say that and i wish i could have gotten the data but they didn't have it at the time and maybe the property appraisers office how many homes are assessed at 150 000 or less how many homes are assessed at 250 000 or less so there will be some people who don't pay any taxes if amendment three passes and once again how are we going to get our light poles how we're going to get our streets fixed are those things going to happen now do you want really want to know about renting and about people who own property but does not have a homestead have a homestead exemption because i'll just skip you this part hello my group from hi all right thank you no worries i can do that okay so once again you know you must live in the home and to claim homestead exemption so here is the example about the portion of the bill that talks about the reducing the annual bill cap from 10 to 5 so right now homesteaded properties the property assessor cannot assess your home any greater than three percent they can assess it less but not greater so here for those who own non-homesteaded properties is being reduced from 10 percent to five percent so is that a benefit to those persons of course it is but here's the caveat the thought if amendment three passes then the city can think of other ways to replace that revenue and this may be one of the place that they do it put more fees more requirements in regards to those who are owning property that they rent that's not homestead and so just to go into the math so here we have the example property owner she owns a town home on hillcrest street that she rents she cannot claim homestead exemption because she does not live there however she won't pay property taxes the townhome's assessed value cannot receive five percent of the previous year so here's the math right here so the assessed value of the previous year because it's always based on the previous year the five percent and at five percent then the new assessed value would be two hundred twenty thousand five hundred dollars so that means that if this part if amendment three passes which it won't then this particular property owner the assessed value will not exceed that amount and that's what it discusses any question mahadro group yes she's coming with us come with the mic with the exemptions going up i don't see that necessarily being a bad thing so right now as a homeowner i'm being penalized because i've done everything right you know to go forth buy a house pay my taxes pay my income tax do everything right but the state is only wanting to penalize me as a homeowner what i think would be a better resolution than this and this is a statewide mission instead of doing this and i don't agree with this wholeheartedly but a statewide income tax would be a better resolution than penalizing a homeowner on this um you're talking about roads we need to look at what we're paying these contractors because the services that we're we're getting rendered i10 has been under destruction almost my entire life and it is still not um what we're paying these people to do these projects and continue to repeat them is just absurd and it's coming out of the city pop years and i i understand i want the city to grow i've been a lifelong member of taxability and i understand we have to pay tax the better but we don't have to be singled out and targeted as a homeowner for it thank you for that and i understand your frustration i i served on the north border tpl which is the north border transportation planning organization before becoming a city council representative so i didn't just step up and run for city council i actually served on several boards that i would understand city government and how the state works as well so remember i10 is a state road 95 is a state road so those are state dollars of course as a city we do pay into that i just say that you know that's one of the reasons i hate to bring up jta but that's one of the reasons why we need a lot of reforms i think personally we need some computer rail commuter trains the whole goal in my opinion uh for the um for the skyway was to reduce pollution and this was back in the 70s of course it was built in the 80s i'm a native of jacksonville so if that can serve one of those purposes but i do understand your point and it's well taken now state income tax i don't want to argue with you i would not be a fan of that because i don't want people the federal government to take enough out of my check before i see it and then i don't want the state taking money out of my check too before i see it so yeah i have a huge issue with that that i can't get it i apologize my my point was it's instead of targeting just homeowners it's targeting everybody in the state of florida that is earning an income you're going to pay your fair share into these coffers um on top of that i understand that every mayor we have wants to have a legacy but i mean we started a project for the emerald trail whenever we thought we were getting 147 million dollar federal grant fell through but we still went through with this project and we've been pulling from gas funds and other areas of our city government to make donna deacon's legacy a reality and i just don't agree with you i mean there are things yes i want to see the city better but it shouldn't come at the detriment of people that are funding the city so just remember though this particular measure is coming from the state now if the state really wanted to do homeowners a favor they would have done something about property insurance yeah so mine was like 1200 more this year than last year i can i concur with that but all these about that if we vote yes one amendment three that police times are going to uh slow down so the idea is to vote no no on amendment three no on amendment three you're wanting to vote no on amendment three but our police times i call the police right now you already get put on a hole just right but so with that being said just imagine that the amendment three passes because you've seen on the news whether they say or television where they're saying that hey police fire services will change oh yes they will i expected to change but at the same time when we're entering an era we just exited a contract and how many millions are we are wasting sending money on programs that don't need to be done because my taxes didn't get any cheaper whatever with the flock jso's work got easier because they have ai and i wish i had a jso representative here because then he could talk about those details so yes but yes sir yes thank you thank you for that i appreciate yes ma'am go ahead and this is where i think we're ready for the lights this is one i just to your point sir about you know we are criminalizing homeowners and i you know like both of you i'm a homeowner not in this district my mom is your mom that's good thank you so i'm here with my mom because another of us seeing this district um talk about this meeting but if you think about it it's not only homeowners that's that will be you know navigating to help the community if you rent homeowners already passed it over to you anyway so rents are also paying so homeowners don't just take it on themselves homeowners pass it on to their winners because they come up with the fee for rent so i think that should be a paradigm shift for people my husband and i debated that issue rents pay as well because homeowners pass it off exactly that's true that's very true thank you for that and so that someone else had a hand up okay and so here this just talks about what i mentioned earlier in regards to so the amendment requires counties municipalities to use property taxes solely for public safety education school infrastructure natural resources bond debt service retirement benefits for employees and operations and administrations so here's the key word so that means only so what gets left out what gets left out let's talk about it so these are on the left of the screen these are our sole uses that we just mentioned public safety we know that's fire jfrd education schools and we'll circle back to the education schools part and these are the services that may be reduced or cut right here solid waste how many of you can live without your trash stores how many of you don't want your trash picked up i haven't seen a hand raised yet when i asked that question yeah because everybody wants it picked up and so mulling seniors i love my seniors they will lose their services animal care clean up in 3 of the after storms road resurface remember i told you 400 000 for a mile of road mosquito control and i know that this looks really short doesn't it well let me show you the whole and it's not all inclusive here's some other things too kids hope alliance and i know you've heard of kj before this particular program has it's multifaceted and it affects so many areas if we can't fund kha which helps to fund daycare helps to fund after school programs and that means mom and dad can't go to work and if mom and dad can't go to work they can't take care of their families and if they can't take care of their families that means they can't feed them they can't close them they can't help them and i know no one in here wants to see anyone homeless but this has such a huge ripple effect and then for those of you who have students in middle school elementary school kha helps to fund some of those programs and dubal county public schools and so we're not able to fund those programs where are those kids going to go before mom and dad gets home i'm going to think about right libraries and of course parks and i know hey there's anything that's off the table in regards to when we lose the funding because once again on member 3 look at the language it says solely that means only that means not all those things and then we have to pick and choose what's important and we being the city what's important parks libraries senior services we have to pick and choose okay and basically this is what i just said now i was talking with jerry holland and he is a supervisor of elections and he and i we were just talking about well what could potentially happen if amendment three passes but it won't do it and i he used to be a council representative as well and so one thing he wanted to help to me which i thought was very interesting is that what we could do is start creating special tax funds like for uf shams i'm sure you didn't know but i'm going to tell you anyway the city contributes 56 million dollars to uf shams over here for indigent care that means people who don't have insurance they can go there and get the care that they need in order to pay for something like that we would have additional funds additional tax so if we were to vote yes for amendment three which we won't those are the kinds of things that could potentially happen so once again what are you talking about in regards to amendment three once again i would have an individual benefit if i voted up but the collective being us would suffer and can i be real for a moment really real when it comes to the services being cut if amendment three passes but it won't what are those areas that you see will begin harvest in regards to infrastructure i heard you say i wouldn't be like let's be real the communities of color yeah because it's been happening for the past 50 years and once again this is not about the individual this is about the collective and it's something that we really need to think about and we really need to consider before we vote the last thing i want to refer to on amendment three is refer to the sample ballot again so look at your sample ballot it's a two pager on the ballot you will find amendment three and the referendum if you go by mail on the back i wonder why i was put there you will see it in english and spanish at the bottom you will see where it says c sorry you'll see where it says yes forward slash c s i and then you will see where it says no forward slash no because no means no in spanish too it's real serious it's real serious any questions we need they being and they being the state legislators who supposedly represent us they need sixty percent sixty percent of the electors to approve amendment three so 59.9999 is that 60 percent that's right so we need it to fail yes from high food what's the last part of what you said to pass what so remember in 2027 84 million in 2027 if it passes 84 million that is the projection 184 million i'm saying in 2027 it's going to increase so it'll go up to 200 million or so in 2028 because remember the first year is 150 is the base homestead exemption in 2028 it goes up to 250 000 so that means homes valued at 250 000 or less no techniques okay now let's do that can you see outside the store just to save an argument where can the city of jackson will save anywhere else to make them sit here and spit numbers out about what you pay for the tax media so remember that the jackson it doesn't belong to sean it's our asset and we need to take care of it anyway i'm not arguing i'm not even taking a position against okay i'm saying sell your case what's the other side where can it be where else can we reduce instead of take everything well i understand the point but i'm talking about tax exemption because that's what's on the ballot if there's something else and if there's some other some other measure or some other language in the ballot that asked that talked about some other option then i would discuss that but that's not what's in the about that's not what's in the measure that's not what's in from in the proposition they're talking specifically about homestead exemption and it being increased from 150 000 in 2027 to 250 000. so there so i just i understand the point but i don't i'm not thinking along those lines because that's not the information that i'm being given in terms of what i need to decide as a lawyer so here's some other things and i mentioned it before so what could happen is that we could have like with uf shans that 56 million we could have different special funds there there could be an increase in the l the gas tax that we have there could be an increase in different types of so for example with developers we can probably charge more for the different kind of fees that we have for them so the money will be made up from some other source and not just source for sources we can have increase in sales tax it's like 8.5 now i'm not saying a 7.5 rate something like that we could increase the sales tax so those are other other avenues that the city could take do we want to do that no because food is high enough as it is with respect to that i understand that but those are what you asked about options those are options but that was a great conversation that's what i'm saying give us you know feed both sides so that way when you do take a position at least you know that you guys as the council and the mayor's office has talked about how do we make it up if this happens because obviously you're not going to be blind you guys have already discussed those things so that's all i'm saying well we can't discuss it because you know sometimes i understand that you know what i mean in the meetings in counseling zone i know you guys are there so that's fun that's what i was asking but yeah it's going to come from somewhere because we can't neglect our roads we can't neglect so many aspects of the city that we can't especially when we're talking about sewer and just all the things that help a city to run and to be a city so yes i thought i saw a hand over here what is what's my time um beyond what's my time okay we have a couple good i saw a hand over here i think it's not okay that's fine okay my my issue is my son pays 15 000 because he had his house built his house at the time was 400 000 now they fill that area up with million dollar houses and all these people are paying taxes and my issue with this is there's 195 000 homestead properties in johnsonville and the rest of them and then they have 400 and something thousand houses and not whatever their properties are that are not talking about these people and everybody used to a corner there's a house there's a apartment here's something going up i can't my my goddaughter lost her house last year had it not been for this because she became disabled and she couldn't pay her property tax people work a lifetime and i'm glad you mentioned that because it's in my list hold on my list so when we have people in like with evictions we have services in the city that help with evictions so but if we but if amendment three passes then it won't everyone that service would not become available i know everybody don't know about these services i volunteer with this i go to a lot of different meetings and i'm able to i know people that have lost their homes that's generational wealth this is generational wealth yes ma'am they have these houses for 100 years and yet a grandchild may get in this house and cannot pay property tax is taken from them and sold to another person that's going to get yes ma'am the only thing the only public it's not supposed to have a problem with the but miss barns that's where that personal responsibility comes in so if you had said like you mentioned about your son who purchased a built a home for 400 000 and then they built million dollar homes around him so that means the value of his home had to go up so that's that's good for him yes it doesn't relate to the record the amendment it doesn't relate to that those are like personal situations and i do feel for anyone in that situation but right now we're talking about what we can do as individuals and collectively and how a memory is going to pass okay i have one all right thank you yes i think you still have a question sir yeah keep saying this won't pass oh i'm saying it because i know that what i speak is important so that's why i'm saying that but if it's not gonna pass we're spending a lot of time talking about something that's not well well go ahead and if you don't vote in terms of you if you don't vote if you don't vote for or it gets it let's just say i'll speak loud that's okay that's because i want to go ahead so if you fail to vote if it were the case that a failure to vote is approval for it no failure to vote is just okay but in this situation a failure to vote or in any situation if a failure to vote means approval tell me what your thoughts are on that so first of all i have an issue with ability to vote means approval so we know that not all voters vote so it's always a plurality of the voters like the majority of those who voted and once again that's why i went to the 60 regardless it still has to be that 60 threshold if it doesn't mean the 60 threshold which is in our florida constitution regards to ballot measures then it will fail yeah okay so in that in this particular situation you don't believe it would be right or a failure to vote no to be considered a vote in approval no what you're talking about asking a question is that correct so i don't see why you would not you have your ballot in front of you you took all your time to go to vote why would you leave that particular measure going that means that means you are going to give up your power and the opportunity to make a choice we're assuming exactly but if you don't do it because you don't have a a dog in the hunt for lack of a better term or everyone does because everyone uses the streets in 2024 you sponsored legislation that was approved that changed um municipal ordinances to allow a failure to vote i'm talking about i'm talking about a democracy i'm talking about votes everything okay he sponsored legislation to allow a failure to vote to be counted as approval so you're specifically talking about traffic comment i'm speaking in general no no no so so that that that's it's a democracy and a failure to vote should not that particular type of item so in which situation is a failure to vote appropriate so only in that because it is talked about the traffic calming measures right but you sponsored that legislation you have notice i'm sorry we're talking about something very specific which has to do with traffic calming no it actually has to do with this as well because if i don't vote it's not going to pass right i'm sorry you you're standing up there and you're saying no i i just you're standing up there saying it's not going to pass it's predetermined that it's going to pass according to you because that's what you know so you're so if you don't vote against it no what i am saying i'm going to say that is because i'm speaking it and so i'm saying that if it passes because it won't i'm just saying that's because we talk okay but you're speaking to a group of voters who are should believe everything you say because it should be the truth i would hope that you would look at the facts as opposed to just believing what i said because they're facts right right you see data okay all right okay if you don't vote i'm going to say any situation should have voted i would count as approval for anything you need to on the ballot vote for everything that's on the ballot do not leave anything blank and i'm informing you about memory because because of the impact it will have on the city and the state that's on the other hand yes all right she's going to bring the microphone to you so everyone can hear of the tax break that they will receive that will help reduce their expenses because it will affect the taxes in the end and your standpoint is we don't know how it will affect it's affecting homeowners now but if it does pass it will affect affect everyone regardless of their homeowners or not but we don't know where the funds are coming from so basically feel like you know where the funds are coming from now so leave them there and not leave it up to whoever decide where the funds are going to come from if it was exactly yes i'm affirming what you just said your understanding is beautiful that's exactly right you are you are excellent student okay so okay so he's not a homeowner right so it affects me but i should go no because so he's okay but he's going to be affected anyway exactly but he wasn't affected before because it didn't have to happen but now he's going to be affected instead of being affected yes because it has to do with once again it's still infrastructure it's still public service services and it's still uh the public services and it's it is basically everything there isn't anything that will be off the table that's not among that strongly used for that's in the battle yes yes again um as a homeowner i get a break for my homestead exemption yes if this passes then i am able to take that money and donate it or volunteer it to programs that i want it to be paid to be paid for and not every little program with the city wants to pay i can choose where that money goes i don't need to have the city i understand what you're saying yes so for example if i was to go guess and it was to pass my seven hundred dollars i was going to say that i would say i could take that and buy my ass with me that's what i'm saying is that what you're saying you can use it some other way or like condoning into a program that i believe in instead of all of the city pet projects and i understand what you're saying and i understand what you think about pet too but remember the idea is that our general funds go towards benefiting us as citizens as residents of jacksonville okay are you going to ask me more about the traffic coming okay so i am at seven what fifteen seven twenty one okay so we're going to move on to the teacher referendum miss brooks evans you ready to come forward and talk with us a little bit once again for those of you who weren't here earlier we have one sorry go ahead i'm sorry mother mother joyce i'm here yes ma'am yes ma'am my question is this amendment three got me now because i'm glad you asked that question so it wasn't the mayor it wasn't the mayor of any city it is your state your state your state legislatures made the decision to put this on to a ballot the state legislature if it's going to affect the state this citizen uh why would you even want to crash about or put something about it that's one of the calls all of these uh mishaps on transportation everything but the whole thing mother joyce mother joyce you are talking some good talk so here's the thing that you should think about not just you but everyone when those state legislators are up for re-election should you re-elect them no you shouldn't that's right because they're not representing us i don't know who they're representing but i'll go i'll circle back to my statement and i'm going to let miss brooks evans talk if they really wanted to do something for homeowners here in florida they would have done something about property insurance they would have done something about it because it is out of control but it was not my choice it was not the mayor's choice it was not anyone's choice here in the city government i would not i love me i would not hurt me and that's the same thing i love this thing i would not hurt the city men's folks evans you ready so once again this is tabby bruce evans she is the dubal county teachers union president and of course one of my favorite people so i'm gonna let her go ahead and talk and just i know slides will correspond so i'll talk about the slides but you go ahead and tell us what you want to talk about good evening everyone and as she said i'm tandy bruce sevens and i'm the president of the world teachers united which is the church union and we represent teachers fair professionals and office personnel when we talk about the referenda money this doesn't just benefit our classroom teachers it benefits the police in the schools it benefits our fair professionals the painters the electricians the clerical the secretaries all those parties receive money from the record the record the cost for paying the record rental when it goes to the teachers is about 75 billion dollars i heard you guys talking earlier about if something doesn't pass where we make those funds if this record doesn't pass teachers will take a pay cut because the district cannot generate 75 million dollars to take the place of this money they depend on this money to put back into our community because they live in this group they buy gas this group they buy groceries this referendum is just a continuation it's not a new tax it's not adding anything new to what you're already paying this is just a continuation um state law requires that every four years you bring it to the people to vote for or against this referendum and so i hope is that you're going to vote yes i have been to quite a few meetings where i follow the district around or they educate everyone about the referendum and they're unable to tell you how to vote i can tell you how to vote vote yes vote yes to support our educators here in newville county um we've been working really hard to increase the pay in newville county and this is a big part of the money that they receive and they absolutely will miss it if it goes away they have it for this school year if it does not pass on the third next year that money will go away and they will take a pay cut because unfortunately in newville county because of all the vouchers we have a declining enrollment the amount of money that the district receives is tied to how many children if i like to say how many hot little bodies show up in cities it's based on how many kids we have and as the voucher programs grow here in the state of florida it directly impacts what happens in the schools it impacts how they can pay salaries it impacts the benefit package they have everything is impacted by them so i've been running around this again talking to people and trying to educate on what it means for this record and what it means to the teachers that we see every day the pair of professionals that we see in the classrooms working with our kids this is a direct impact i did a speech recently at the school board and i think i said 15.10 about 30 times in my sentence because that's what paraprofessionals get paid and out to work with children who are special needs and need our help and our support they receive about five thousand dollars from this record five thousand dollars for someone who makes 15 bucks an hour can be life-changing for their family so imagine if that has to go away for them you need our community to continue to support our educators support the schools here in newville county and the way that you can do that is to vote yes as a continuation for this referendum it is on the back of the ballot just like she just talked about the superintendent is telling everyone to go to the back of the ballot with the very last thing vote yes and then put back and go for the others like those are the things i mean just flip over and let's take care of our educators and take care of the ones who are taking care of our children i want to say one little thing about amendment three when we talk about the programs and things that will get cut and talk about programs in school there are families who depend on team up and boys and girls club and all those programs in the schools so that they can drop their children off at six o'clock in the morning so they can go to work and they'll leave their kids there until five o'clock in the afternoon until they get off if those programs are away i don't want to think about what will happen if we have middle school girls on supervisors where there is no team up program for them to go to unless their parent can afford to pay for it because the schools will have another choice but start charging for those programs they can offer them but now people have to pay for them if they're taking a pay cut and number three is passing services how are they ever going to be able to do the things they need to do for their children those programs are integral to some kids getting exactly what they need every day an additional milk because they feed them when they stay after school help with the homework help with getting things done that mom and dad is so tired because remember they dropped them off at six o'clock in the morning take a look at five o'clock in the afternoon these programs are very very important to our communities and very very important to what we do here in our city because we want to prepare our students for those jobs and the things and the growth that we see here in duval county so this referendum is extremely important to the work that they do and we are hoping that we will continue this this wonderful thing that's been happening for them on average teachers get about eighty six hundred dollars a year with the referendum we've been very blessed like every year it's gone up a little bit which continues to grow the amount they receive is gone so we want to make sure that they continue this is i'm here to ask you please vote yes tell all your neighbors and friends to vote yes for the referendum yes ma'am no because that is funded by the absent that opinion that's for like 15 years and there's some great schools out there you have to visit the new schools to see where your tax dollars are going they are building really great schools and really great problems together questions for me so vote yes in the referendum so let's talk about do this in several ways go back okay we'll use this one let's go back this one that's a little larger the one that you have a copy of so go back to that handout that you have and then someone was talking about it earlier and i said i'll circle back to it so right here public schools says value exemption here and you'll see it in the ballot language for amendment three the exemption it doesn't change in regards to schools so this public school portion that you see here and the last year proposed this is mandated by the state it's non-voter the one by local board is statement mandated it's non-voting or non-voter school board where you see this information here this is this represents your one bill so for this homeowner the 158 59 is what they would have paid in 2026 remember this is for 2027 and then for the one bill this is what they would pay 16249 so the one bill is exempt in amendment three so it doesn't change the tax amount and as you can see you can see you have three aspects the state level then the local and the second local which represents the one bill and just like as brooks evans was saying i'll tell you a couple of things uh first of all those you don't know i've been teaching for 33 years my first year salary as a teacher was 43 000 so dollars school regardless of the things that happen is a safe place for children we wanted to continue to be a safe place for children in addition to the fact that they is where they get educated teachers teachers work for 10 months they don't work for 12 months here in the state of florida well let me ask the question i like asking questions where do you think you're right as far as teacher pay in comparison to all the other states i know you're gonna answer here let's see let's see i see a hand right there um still still you have a you have a i mean well you have a we just said you said 15th okay web you would get a little star web because that's right teachers in florida are they last in terms of salary in this nation the base paper teachers in florida is 48 000 and so dollars miss brooks evans has told you on average about what is it 86 8600 teachers who do not have their pay spread over the summer get 22 paychecks for those 10 months and you can do the math so 8600 is the average you can see how much that is per paycheck because teachers get paid twice a month by weekly do the math teachers need that one bill in order to be able to focus on the needs of children as opposed to trying to figure out how to not pay their rent their electricity and i can't remember when but now in this day and age teachers are considered among those who are workforce housing that is like in the past five years that was mind-blowing to me because the work that teachers do is so important it's more important that we can ever imagine and as a teacher i love it when i see this grown person staring at me across a restaurant or when i'm in line somewhere and they just keep staring and then they start talking to somebody next to them and then all of a sudden the person comes up and i look like i know this is a student they run over like a little kid do you remember me and i said you give me a minute you tell me to love reading my mother's partner listen remember how you used to allow us to read and we listen to some jazz i don't even know what my kids miss partner and you know they don't believe we live anywhere else other than the school you live at school so are teachers worth it 100 100 so let me just talk about the handout for a minute once again the ballot language is on here just to tell you what happens with that one bill so the one bill 81 of it goes to duval county public schools 19 of it goes to charter schools 12 of that 81 percent goes to arts and athletics none of the one bill those companies it's just for salaries for teachers or prayer professionals and miss books evans is so right our prayer professionals 15 an hour 15 an hour sometimes so they only get paid for the 7.33 that's how many hours we have as far as teaching do we leave exactly okay middle school 905 is going to report we leave at 425 yeah exactly yeah that's right there's a former teacher right here to retire we're there i know me i'm there at least by 8 50 and sometimes i don't leave until six o'clock why because the bus hasn't come yeah yep yep and i documented i talked my puzzle about it too hey what's going on okay i thought we've been here like a whole day this week because of the buses so teachers get a lot more than they get and that only needs to pass by 50 percent though okay so it's not like the amendment we just need 50 of the electorate to pass one year so let me go back charter schools get 19 of the one bill the 12 that football county gets goes to arts and athletics and athletics and it helps to build athletic fields if you want to know exactly how the wind bill has been used for the past four years you can go to the gcps website and it will show you a list of the athletic fields the different things that have been done with the money but once again it does not go towards capital improvements which happens to be schools it is not used for that it's teacher salaries arts and athletics and just like this book said it is on the back if you are voting by mail it is on the back of your ballot you have a sample ballot it's on the back of your ballot and on the back of this handout is the language if you want to see i enlarged it if you want to see the language you can see the language you'll see it on your ballot in english then in spanish and then you'll see once again yes forward slash c and you'll see double forward slash no any questions any questions yes ma'am okay good question so the gentlemen who are at the tables represent different city departments so first of all you have this first table you have parts then you have um mowing public works and then the last gentleman is code enforcement so if you have an issue with regards to public works mowing you can go see mr danny's in the middle and if you have an issue with parks you can see mr joseph and if you have an issue with code enforcement you can see mr bill is that's what those gentlemen are there for any other questions yes if you would go to mr arms so yes you feel free to go over if you need to talk with any of the early gentleman yes mr barnes i cannot hear you turn the mic i'm sorry give me one second i failed to recognize his colleague rocklin johnson he's in the back district 14 thank you for being here go ahead so what do you mean what do you mean by going to carolina because it's a meridian meridian headquarters so first of all we talked about it earlier we came to a consensus that nobody does not want the trash not to be picked up okay but we already talked about it so they can have their headquarters wherever they choose and then here in jacksonville we have at least four waste management providers so we have the city we have meridian waste probe we have a few so the city doesn't have any control over where meridian has their headquarters what we do is we do a a bid process and we look at who who will provide the best service at a particular rate where they have the best service at a particular rate where they have the headquarters is way beyond our purview that it's out of our hands we don't have any control about what was that okay research and it said this money goes it said it goes here on our guard to obtain that money so that is not meridian that is a bill that we passed last year because prior to last year the city was borrowing money to pay for our waste services our debt and so the fee and if you look on your trim notice it's gone up and it's gone up to pay down that debt since 2000 mayor patty was the mayor which one was it dummy which one it's only been in the last two years because because i went to when they said that we had not had an increase we had money here before because when it first started it was 79 dollars and then it went up to 179 and then this year it was 300 and something so it's right and almost double but it's been a very long time i wish i can remember the year but it's been a very long time i don't know the exact year but it's been a long time since we've had an increase and if you compare what we paid for our garbage fee to miami tampa other places i guarantee you would complain but they paid a lot more now i wish i had known because we're talking about the referendum we're talking about the one mill so if i had known i would do our research but what i will do i will email you the information we'll be sending to you too because i can send it to both of you because we have not had we have not had we have not had an increase we have not had an increase in a long time and what we're doing what we were doing at the city was borrowing money from the general fund to pay for it and that that's something that we should do and so council member matt carlucci at large proposed that bill i was a co-sponsor because what we are supposed to do as elected officials is solve problems and that's all the problem any other questions you're welcome if you have some other concerns i will definitely address those as best as i can if i can't and i will get your information so that i can send you a response i'm going to say that concludes our meeting thank you so much for being here i appreciate your time and your talent for being here i'm so happy i hope you can make a really good and important decisions based on the information that you have